Well it hit me at work today that I never told you about Paul. Of course that’s not his real name, but it does start with the same letter. I started dating my first boyfriend right around my 18th birthday, he was useful, so i had a boyfriend for prom, and my grad party, and he had a truck and was a huge help when i moved out of my parents house. But in no way was i using this guy, i really liked him, i definitely was not the one who wanted things to end when they did, which shockingly was when he left for college. But his college was only about thirty minutes from my apartment, and we never dropped off communicating, so we still got together for sex that first semester we were in college. But, during that same time, i met Paul, through the same avenue that i met my first boyfriend- myspace. Paul messages me out of the blue on myspace, claiming that he searched through myspace for anyone going to our college and my page was the only one he found interesting. Which i can kind of understand, i exhibited way more personality at 18 than most will their whole lives. So Paul and i started talking on AIM, and as it turned out we had a lot in common, especially not being over our recently ended relationships with other people.A few months pass, Paul and i talk online on occasion, then when it came out that neither of us reconciled with our exes like we’d hoped, Paul asked me to a movie. It was The Departed. Ill never not think of him when i see or hear about that movie. While we were watching it (in theatre) he asked me “would it be weird or wrong if i put my arm around you?”After months of my ex, who texted me when he was horny (like i wasn’t going to invite him over every single time) then bailed as soon as we were done, it was kind of hard not to start liking Paul, a lot. But, he was 21 and i was 18, and sometime between that first movie and anything else happening, a long time friend of his who was his age came out with feelings she had for him, so naturally he tossed me like rotted fruit. It kind of destroyed me a little bit more than the rest of my life already had, because here was the THIRD guy i’d invested my emotions in and was led on by when all the while someone from their past already had a hold on them (how does one compete with history? I mean really). And i really liked Paul, he was intelligent and kind and i could just sense this stable goodness about him because I was good at sensing that sort of thing, even back then. And, most importantly, he was the first person i met who made me think someone could like me for who I am, not how i looked. His interest in me generated from my personality. At 18 this was the first real life example i had of such a thing, at least happening to me. I remember so distinctly, when we were in the movie, it was The Departed, his heart started beating really fast during the sex scene, and i could feel it because his arm was around me and my god was that arousing, it still kind of is. It still is.Of course, 18 year old Cassie couldn’t leave herself with a speck of dignity so i tried telling him how i felt after he’d already started dating her. I got “i had no idea you felt so strongly” which…yeah….of course 18 year old me had NO idea how to express herself. I’m a fucking font of constant self aware expression now compared with then, back then i was so scrambled i couldn’t understand my own feelings. Trauma does that. The inevitable happened and Paul and i stopped communicating. It’s really not hard to see, now, why things happened as they did. But, truth be told, I was way more emotionally invested than he could have possibly known. But, I mean, what do you expect from a teenager? I was mature for my age, but I had very little experience with boys, because my pretty much a terrible human being first boyfriend. I found it especially funny that I didn’t know it when we were talking, but Paul and I would end up having the same major in college, this was when I was trying to deny my authorly intentions in life, when I was like “Oh I’ll be an accountant and write in my free time” (ha ha) this was the most hollow, pointless, vapid point in my life as well. I was also very skinny. Which I do miss, but man are my boobs way bigger now. Anyway. I guess a little bit of me will always be vapid, huh?

So, in conclusion, do I blame Paul for what he did? No. He was a good guy. That’s why I liked him so much. And, I mean, like three years later I met my future husband…so it was just three more years of crap and bullshit and guys like Doug: “You’re gonna want to strap yourself in for this next one.”

But, while I’m being perversely honest like I love to be, I would definitely put Paul on the Fucking Guest List, as I like to call it. Who else is on there? Well, that one professor I told you about (duh), and my one coworker, and my neighbor, and that one other guy from the company, and then the guy who used to work for us. Their names are Daniel, Sean, Noah, Joe and Donnie. But are you going to remember that? Those are actually real names, but like, does that matter? I mean, even IF someone in my real life found this, I would just be like “way to read my hundreds and hundreds of pages of blogs, you stalker” because we all know that’s what it takes to get to anything REALLY interesting about me. This is like my 102nd blog…which is almost an accomplishment because you cannot understand how compulsively I destroy my journals and diaries…because…IDK it’s like I didn’t want evidence of any kind of emotion or thought lying around…because somehow it felt like it was going to be used against me….yes, let’s all take the ten seconds it takes to sleuth that one out.

Also, have I admitted that I actually like hentai? Like, not the fucking weird tentacle porn, but like a LOT of hentai has an actual plot to it, and because the actors are just doing voices, they’re actually still good actors. To get people who look good and are willing to fuck on camera for money…you’re going to filter out all the talent, are you not? I guess because if I’m watching porn it can’t just be some weird amateur POV slapping sounds and nothing else BS. Like, it needs an actual story. If I ever had the $ I would totally produce a porno, just because I have a pretty kinky period (historical, not menstrual, I get why you might confuse the two given this new topic) piece I want to make. Not telling you about it here, sorry. Maybe one day I’ll get to be like hey guys guess what I did.

Also, what I did today was write less than a page (of my book) because I wanted to do this blog justice, I started it on my phone on my lunch break. I should try and get to it a little bit more done tonight. That’s moving along as steadily as ever. I’m pretty diligent about going at it as much as possible. (ha)

Anyway, hope you had a good Monday back from a holiday weekend – aka a bunch of people are sun burned and pissy.

That shouldn’t be plural. We all know it’s only my house. I only leave home when I have to, like for work and the few errands not yet eliminated by the internet.

I’m going to start a blog about how I need to find more time to write my novel. OH WAIT.

I have umpteen faults and all, but being unsatisfied with a mid-level, some would say boring, life is not one of them. I long for lower middle class stability, and a lifetime of running mundane errands with a spouse I love. I guess when you have nothing (emotionally that is, financially we were the people who make themselves poorer and poorer every year living beyond their means, my fathers inability to maintain steady gainful employment also played a role) even just the amount most people cast aside as inadequate because it’s not “spectacular” or whatever…I don’t know. I mean I guess I just think if anything about someone is going to be spectacular, it should be what you create, not your house or your hot, shallow sex life or your car or your soulless unfulfilling job, you know? I mean there’s some brain surgeon who finds deep meaning in their work who would tell me to fuck off if they somehow ever read this.

It’s like in When Their Eyes were Watching God when the granddaughter of a former slave marries an older rich man mostly/only to please her aging grandmother. She explains to her friend that her grandmother grew up a slave, and saw the pinnacle of womanly achievement as being the white woman sitting up on the big house’s porch, not doing a thing. She never would have considered that her granddaughter (Janie, I think her name was? Jeannie? I should Google it but I can’t leave a blog once I start it, you’ve seen what happens when I do) might want something MORE for herself than sitting up on that porch. I’m kind of the grandmother when it comes to like emotional stability and capability for growth. I know that’s probably pretty sad to admit, but it’s also the fucking truth. ALSO – I’m not equating my life experience thus far to slavery. NOT doing that by any means. There are some things that should just be clarified right away.

Like, to clarify, I know that ALL of the fucking time I spend writing these posts I could be writing my other work. And I am painfully aware that now that I’m in the age pocket of “done with college” but haven’t hit “has children” yet, I will NEVER have more free time for this shit than I do now.

I wasn’t kidding when I said I need to do this. Especially now, because I noticed something.
I get these excruciating tension headaches. They’re to the point where if one hits at work, early on enough in the day, I’ll go home at noon. They wake me up if I’m fortunate enough to fall asleep while enduring one. If you don’t know what it’s like, it’s every single muscle in your neck tensing up to the point where it all feels like it’s made of steel that wound too tight. Then that pain radiates up your spine and into your head and makes one or both sides just throb. You can take Excedrin, because that can help if you catch it early on and you can be awake for the next ten hours…but therein end your options.
These headaches almost always coincide the week of my period, IF I haven’t cried recently.

Remember when I wrote about how I know if I need to masturbate because I’ll start doing it in my sleep? It’s like some odd clockwork when my brain’s like “Hey, been awhile without that special rush of chemicals i like…do this now dumb bitch.” I feel like my id must hate me, because I’m repressed in ALL these disturbing ways. Even still. I think about my emotions constantly but I’m still really not able to convey them and sometimes I feel like everyone in my life is in some conspiracy to make me a lunatic.

Well, I think I’m starting to do the same thing with crying. Like….some part of me I can’t reach knows when I need to, and i hate this term for a reason I haven’t told you about yet but I’m sure will at some point, but when I need to release, I will subconsciously make it happen no matter what.

The way to truly test it is to make myself cry a lot the few days before and during my period week.

There were also two tensions headaches within as many weeks. But my mom is having knee replacement surgery tomorrow and we have the world’s most complicated situation – complicated until W is dead, am I right? – and that upsets me.

Also, did you wonder how I’ll make myself cry? Oh, there’s no worries there. I can give myself goosebumps or make tears well in my eyes when I want to. I’m not saying I use this to my advantage, I wouldn’t betray my dark emotions like that, but I know it’s true. I guess there’s a lot of sad shit in my life. And, I don’t want to waste my time writing about it. But I don’t know what else to do.

If I had to pick two words to describe my childhood it would be invasive and lonely. It’s odd having a parent who’s checked out and lazy but still somehow controlling? Then another who just…the picture of passivity, to say the least.

If I had to pick two words to describe what worries me about my adult life, it’s pointless and infuriating. I mean, the idea that I’m almost 30 and I haven’t even begun to think of having kids and the only thing I have to show for my life is a FUCK ton of student loan debt and my marriage has had….just some DISTURBING lows and honestly not enough highs to balance it out and we just talked about how my tolerance is fucking low for that sort of thing. I haven’t written anything of note. I’m too busy being worried I’ll never have time to write. See when I was in school all those years I could tell myself that it was because of the school taking all my time. So, if I do give in to convention and have kids, I’ll just say it’s them. Then I’ll have all these unsorted issues that I’ll take out on my kids. I mean really the only thing I ever actually worry about in life is being a thing like W, bearing even a slight resemblance. I mean physically you can’t help it, I certainly didn’t get my mother’s eyes, but I mean behaviorally. I’ve already told you about the few times, whilst plastered and in that MEAN drunk mode, my husband has told me I’m acting like my father’s daughter. Truly few things make me hate him more. I’m not saying I actually hate my husband, but that THAT is what he’s like when he’s fucked the fuck up…it’s just so not encouraging.
As for the infuriating, well I think it should be clear how angry I am.
I don’t want to be. Really, deep down, I actually am this laid back person who wants to be happy and not around a lot of people all at once. But see this bad shit happens. Because when I was a child, I was taught a few things about my feelings, from my mom and dad, my brother, my Grandma, my teachers, the other kids at school, any boys I would life pre-husband, it’s like they all had a goddamn meeting and were like yes let’s definitely drive these points home to that deserving little cunt:
Your feelings, Cassie, they:
1) DO NOT MATTER
2) Are always going to be so put off and neglected and ignored you won’t feel like last place you’ll feel like you weren’t even told there was a race to begin with
3) Are of the LEAST concern
4) DO NOT MATTER
5) NO ONE CARES HOW YOU FEEL
6) You have to be worth something for your feelings to matter
7) COUNT FOR NOTHING
Why? Why did they make me feel like this? Well, Lutheran school teachers are garbage. God knows how many of them are sexual predators but I bet it beats the national average for public school. But I mean, a lot of kids have an awful time at school, for a full bevy of reasons. But home? Like that was an escape? As a kid I couldn’t keep money in my piggy bank, because if my dad needed some he would take it and leave and IOU that, weeks later and after much aggravated nagging on my part, my mom would have to pay back. If we took a two hour long nap on a Sunday as teenagers he was rifling through our rooms for the drugs we must be on. Despite that he naps 4-5 hours a day EVERY day. Something to break up the television watching and toilet-sitting/vodka drinking that he does with the rest of his time. Lucky for me he was either too stupid or too lazy to go through the Word files on my computer. Boy he would’ve had a problem with most of that content.
That my novel – being as….well idk I have a ton of gay characters, they just ended up gay, like some people do and its a genetically tiny sample of people to begin with so it makes sense that some traits like homosexuality could get ‘trapped’ say on an island no one is allowed to leave? Does that make sense? Am I deliberately writing something that says being gay is genetic? I mean I guess that’s what happened. But I mean, before I start seeming like some appropriating fuckwad we must also appreciate that my work would have to be categorized as fantasy. Which is honestly a genre I fucking hate besides the Sookie Stackhouse novels….. it would enrage my dad. My mom is open-minded, when it comes to that at least, but she is one of those white people who doesn’t realize they’re racist (example, why do you have to comment on how ‘clean’ the black boyfriend of your coworker’s daughter is? why would that be a thing you mention?). But of course my novel isn’t about him, it just would have all these excellent fringe benefits, like enraging my piece of shit dad with its rhetoric. It’s AGENDA, which is what they’d call it.

Did any of this help or make me feel better? Well yeah. See, remember how I was saying that I was taught constantly and by everyone in my life that my feelings didn’t matter? Even my poor mother, she did her best but she was causing so much damage when she used me as her sounding board for her life’s many, many woes. And, I didn’t get to have feelings, or if I did they were secondary. I was to be cheerful, and upbeat, and happy, and high-achieving and cheerful, I was there to make everyone else happy, to make THEIR lives matter. My life and ME, we certainly didn’t matter. So if I don’t count at all, why the fuck would my feelings even register as existent?

And why is that shit so damaging? Because it teaches you to hold everything in. Think of it like a sarcophagus. It’s made of stone and sealed shut forever with an embalmed corpse inside, and boy what a perfect metaphor for my psyche back then. I guess you could call my eventual ability to self-soothe my very own necromancy. God, can I even follow that metaphor….

So, sure, keeping your feelings hidden because you aren’t EVER allowed to acknowledge them, much less work through any, seems nice, but it’s not. Because that sarcophagus…it leaks a little. Not enough to let YOU out, but people can smell something rotten about you. You’re mean. You wait for EVERY opportunity to undermine or hurt someone else because that’s how you fucking get treated. You maintain no long-lasting or fulfilling relationships of any kind. Your inability to express yourself in any kind of healthy way follows you through high school, making dating COMPLETELY impossible. When you’re out of high school it makes you date fucking scum that’s so fucking beneath you. I mean they could’ve been worse but honestly on a mental level I’m appalled at how low I sunk. They were all attractive enough but my life taught me that that alone isn’t enough to get you by. At least not on my level. I’m sure there are those way above me who are completely terrible assholes in every way and also aren’t good at anything. We all know that sort.

So these awful fringes of your true feelings are visible, but that’s it. And that just makes you seem like an uptight hostile bitch, or something. When all you wish you could do was have friends and date like everyone else. Then that resentment compounds on itself and you get all “Well, why should I care then?” about it. I CANNOT imagine going through this being unattractive. How bitter must those people be?

Great it’s almost 7. So basically, repressing feelings is bad and will actually cause lifelong damage if done too much as a child but sometimes self preservation is necessary, so eh. I am almost 30 and am nowhere near even a remote solution. But also, eh. A lot of people never “get better” I’m just grateful I’m healthy and I’m at least with someone whom i would like to be with, given we don’t….ugh…head down the shrubbery maze…so to speak. Because even for me that shit was WAY too dark.

So I was working out and watching Six Feet Under and the cliche troubled baby of the family was getting an even more cliche talk from a high school guidance counselor (did anyone else get totally mislead by media and think they would actually be sitting down and having heart to hearts with a guidance counselor in high school? Literally never did that once, never once did I discuss my plans for the future with anyone. I had to figure it all out on my own. I did pretty good though) and while said cliche baby of the family was saying she didn’t want to go to college to get a good job to work until she dropped dead of exhaustion (I was like..yep…yep, sounds accurate) the counselor asked what she wanted to do instead.

Whenever someone is a television show is having an angsty existential crisis about the meaning and purpose of life, or they’re just feeling familial and societal pressure to pick a career path for the rest of your life when your brain isn’t even fully developed yet, I always have the same answer for the trite questions they get asked. Like, if you didn’t have to worry about money, what would you do? If it was solely about doing something constructive that you loved the most, what would that constructive thing be? You can’t say marijuana strain tester or your personal equivalent of that, either.

So, what’s my answer? I would write. Like no matter what the status of my life. That’s always been the case. And I’ll admit, there’s been some LONG lulls. I started writing I’d say roughly a year or two after I learned to read. I remember doing it by hand then on an electric typewriter. We didn’t own a computer until I was in the second or third grade. But then of course, having an in-home, then later on in-room computer was very conducive to writing being a major pastime of my childhood. I remember quite distinctly, many pleasant Saturday evenings spent by myself in my room, writing on my computer. Honestly, I had next to nothing of a social life in high school, but I don’t think I bothered to make much time for it. My plan was to keep the files I had managed to start and use them to write during (ha) college. Of course that didn’t go incredibly well because timewise one doesn’t have a lot to go around for personal writing between working and college and needing to sleep. And at one point I even thought I would take a career path that led me far away from writing or anything to do with it, I was an accounting major for awhile…blegh. That’s like…the tiny part of me that wanted to act basic to fit in…that’s what that was. I remember receiving encouragement from an academic adviser at my undergraduate school and being like…well that’s at least one person to not shit on the concept. And it was like finally hearing what I wanted to hear made me realize that I already KNEW what I wanted to hear. Like they say when you need to make a decision you should flip a coin, because you’ll realize while the coin is turning mid-air that you already know which side you hope to see.

So, like the beginning of Goodfellas, a movie I watched again and again as a teen, you know this whole, I always wanted to be a writer kind of thing.

So I guess I should be spending my evenings writing then, huh? I should. But instead I’m on WordPress, taking 600 words to get to that run-on sentence in the paragraph before this one.
I am the master of run-ons. If you think two degrees in English changed that, I don’t feel like you know me well enough yet. Which I mean, most people don’t so you can feel good about being part of the majority on that one.

This week was a personal best. I budgeted us down to $0.06. That’s how much we have left until my husband gets paid on Friday. I do too but his money will be there first because I work for a company that thinks people won’t show up to work on Friday if they direct deposit our paychecks. True story.

Have I mentioned how incredibly sick I am of being poor? Of being fucking broke, rather? Like I feel like I exist like a bum on certain levels, but like…I don’t know I know I’m smart, but I also feel fucking TRAPPED in a poor person’s shit cycle.
How did it start? Well, I CERTAINLY grew up in a home that was not financially solvent. It’s SO awkward when people ask about vacations you took as a child and you’re like…uhhh….what? Everyone was too busy being dysfunctional and taking out their negative emotions on one another and being hyper critical of one another, plus we were POOR. My Grandma would buy us school clothes and give my mom money to make ends meet, but she certainly wasn’t going to pay for us to take vacations. She was NOT a frivolous person. Remember, she grew up the only child of an alcoholic shell shock probably gay WW1 veteran farmer, and her parents got married after she’d been conceived…so….yeah, she thought people who had big houses and more than one car per adult and who went on frequent vacations were ungodly, and I mean that in the most serious terms. I’m not at all talking shit about her but the woman certainly had a narrow view of the word. I mean…she was from an all white town (that’s a generous word for it) in Wisconsin, she was born in 1918…she never went to college. She was very well read though, and volunteered as a teacher’s aide for most of her adult life. She was also very into donating blood, for some reason. I do that too, when I can. I have the most common blood type so it’s important.
SO, anyway, growing up poor kind of influences you into being used to always just scraping by, nothing more, of using credit cards to pay for things you couldn’t otherwise afford. AND, of course, there was nothing saved up for my college. My dad implied I should’ve just gotten a full ride scholarship. That’s the thing, no matter how much he praised me, he also had this way of undermining everything everyone else did or liked. That wears on a person, after awhile. And I got some scholarships, but certainly not a free ride. I went to the cheapest state school in my state though…so that helped I guess. So I started accumulating debt right at 18. What else was I supposed to do, not go to college? The only cheaper option that would have worked would have been the community college in my town….but why would I do that when I didn’t have to? I’m fucking above community college caliber, even if I am poor white trash when you look at my credit score. Which I need to start doing soon.
Then, the debt just kept snowballing from there. I took out a lot of credit cards. I remember taking out one and maxing it out immediately to pay my rent. What else was I supposed to do? Then, as the years passed and I was still totally supporting myself and living by myself I took out a few personal student loans as well, in addition to the money from the federal government. A lot more credit cards were gotten. At one point, I had to use one of those credit card debt repayment help services. They turn off all of your credit cards, but collections processes stop, they stop calling you, and you start paying them off at a reduced rate. It really did help. But there were a few I didn’t enroll in that service, and then I just started accumulating more and more as the years passed. The Mattress World one when we bought our bed together a week before we got engaged. The Menards one when we desperately needed window air conditioners for our rental house and we had no other means to purchase them. The Target one the night I bought my 2DS with R (blegh again). The JC Penney one when I realized the same card could be used for Sephora make up and work clothes. Then Care credit we’ve used to get our cats to the vet for years now. Then the three regular credit cards that are pretty much always maxed out. Then I obviously have student loan payments. THEN all the money it takes to just exist.
Ugh, just writing that makes me realize how impossible it all is. We’re making more now that we ever have, but maybe it hasn’t happened long enough for me to notice. It’s like we can’t figure it out. We’re broke AF all the time but literally the only extraneous thing we spend money on is weed. And we used to both smoke cigarettes and drink every single day in addition to always smoking weed, so I’m quite uncertain how there’s less now. And that’s with my in laws still paying for both of our cell phones and my husband’s car insurance. We only so recently started paying our rent ourselves. What, like you’re too good to take free rent money when it’s offered? Please. When people get weird when I tell them that, they’re just jealous. I’d be jealous and hateful too, so I deem it fine.
But, I mean, I feel kind of trapped when it comes to money. Maybe that’s my problem. I always manage to get us just through the week, and that’s all I’m able to do it would seem.
BUT, the huge bright side to my financial complaints is that it doesn’t cost anything to be a writer. I mean sure it takes my time, but what other potentially profitable thing could I really be fitting into post working out after work and making dinner? That’s a whopping 1-3 hour window, also of course it’s my only me time.

Wow, it’s really late, and this has gotten really long. I am beginning to strongly doubt that I’ll bother making dinner tonight.

But like I said, always wanted to be a writer, despite my MANY, MANY other horrid life choices and preferences and decisions, I will always stay true to this one pursuit and it seems so natural and right I can’t explain it to anyone.

See, I can be succinct when I want, but where’s the real craftsmanship in that?